Frank had never seen a spectre before (apart from Shepard of course.) so he had only a very limited idea of what to expect. Dumond couldn't, or wouldn't tell him anything, he just kept telling him they would be there soon enough. He knew this one was an Asari, so he assumed she would resemble the commandos he had... met.
So when they finally came to a stop near the shuttle dock, he was amazed by what he saw. She was leant back against a shuttle, a suit of ceramic armour far heavier than that of any commando curled around her athletic body like a shell. Each plate was coated in a deep ocean blue lacquer, so reflective of the light that he could see every detail of the nearby shuttles intricate insignia, with the joints highlighted in block yellow. A matte grey spectre symbol sat across the chest, the wings on either side spread from shoulder to shoulder. On either hip sat a gun slotted into a custom quick draw slider, small dents on the tops of the thighs betraying their regular use.
And then there was her face. She held her head so that the chin gently tilted into the neck, so that shadows highlighted wide but perfectly curved features. As her piercing eyes fell dully on him with a bored stare, Frank thought immediately of a lioness, an image reinforced by her short, narrow scalp. With a graceful flick she threw her head back, momentarily revealing a dark blue scar on the underside of her neck. For some reason even that seemed elegant on her.
" you're commander Francis James Rekki?"
Her voice was unlike that of any Asari he had ever heard, it was fairly deep and had a slight nasal quality. If he hadn't known better, he could almost have sworn she was a Texan.
"Yeah, that's me"
"I heard they were going to execute you if you didn't agree to this, seems they'll hire anyone these days"
"Well, I'll take what I can get" he extended a hand out to her, but it was ignored. Frank realised his attempt to make nice had offended her.
"I don't discriminate," she told him bluntly "Positively or otherwise, so I'll be judging you on what I see. And I don't like heroes, especially when they get people killed. If you get into trouble don't expect me to haul your ass out."
It suddenly dawned on Frank that she had probably read all his reports, seen how badly his last mission had gone. She probably knew there had been members of her own species aboard that cursed station, and was certainly smart enough to work out that Cerberus hadn't killed all of them. For the first time he felt guilty, unable to hide behind procedure as the bare facts stared him in the face. He fought hard not to blush a little as well, embarrassed at his own stupidity. Dumond stood awkwardly, and not just because of the crutches. There was a pained silence.
It was the Spectre who finally broke the silence, swinging her hand out from behind her back and offering it to a surprised Rekki. Frank shook it. She had a strong grip, her smooth, icy blue digits firmly grasping his own calloused hand with total control. He had a lot to learn.
"Clianala t'Sooris" she announced, a sense of pride in her voice as she named herself. "But call me Clia in the field, much quicker."
Both men were taken aback by her sudden transition from hostile to friendly. She was being intentionally hard to decipher. Dumond seized his opportunity to leave.
"I had better let you get back to your ship, Miss t'sooris, I'm sure you have important work to be doing."
" Oh, I do, Mister Dumond, I do."
Dumond took off in the other direction, closely followed by his medical staff. Clianala mumbled darkly to herself, eventually spitting out the word "politicians" she turned to face Frank. She was a little shorter than he was, but had no trouble looking him in the eye.
"You're a soldier, right?"
"Yes."
"Good. So you'll have no problem doing as you're told. Let's get going." She opened the shuttle and gestured for him to enter. Inside he found two simple benches and, as he buckled himself onto one bench, the spectre sat directly across from him on the other. She didn't bother with the seatbelt, but instead shifted her weight biotically to counteract the shaking as the small craft took off. She was certainly powerful. "What sort of work did they have you doing before this? Before Orpheus?" she asked, ignoring a sudden jolt that threw Rekki sideways.
"Sabotage, espionage, tactical strikes, even assassinations. I don't know how much you've read-"
"I've read enough. I want your take on it."
"Well I-"he paused. He had never really thought about it before. He'd just been given orders and intel and told to get on with it. He had never had to think about the overall strategic value of his mission, that was a job for people like general Sopner. All he knew was that the jobs he did, the people he killed, it was all for the good of the galaxy. "I've done my share of wetwork."
Clianala nodded. "Good to see you're honest about what you do. I hate people who try to justify themselves, the kind with a big cause that makes it all alright. A Spectre doesn't pick sides."
"I understand" said Frank
"No you don't. I've seen it in everybody I've ever evaluated, they can't hack having that the only way to use the kind of power a Spectre has fairly and safely is to acknowledge you don't have an opinion .You don't think, you act. Maybe that's why I fail so many of them."
"I'm confused, what exactly do you want from me?"
The Asari leant forward, not once breaking eye contact with him. Her face stopped less than An inch from his, and her feline features filled his field of vision. Her eyes seemed to melt and flow into one. "Everything." She told him, repeating herself for absolute clarity. "Everything. Everything you have, and more. That's the only way to find out if your good enough to protect thousands of lives, or if you're just another criminal running from his punishment."
Frank lowered his eyes and Clianala reclined back against the wall, satisfied that she had broken through any ego her charge may have had. The shuttle was flying more smoothly now, having fully left the moons gravitational pull. Earths only natural satellite was now as distant from them as it was to the planet it orbited. Frank watched it as more and more of its visible surface was consumed by darkness. There was no going back now. Clianala was watching out the other window, searching the black for her ship. Like an island on the horizon it came gradually into view, at first little more than a silhouette but soon solidifying into clearly defined vessel of angles and curves. As they drew closer he could even make out the lights in the viewing ports.
Clianala rose to her feet, grinning proudly. With showman-like finesse she indicated to the ship with her right arm, pointing all five fingertips in unison. "Behold, human!" Frank unbuckled himself and joined her by the window for a better view. The ship was like nothing he had seen in the alliance fleet. It was far smaller than a frigate, if he had to guess, he would have said it was a converted freighter escort. The main body of the ship was fluted, like a chess piece knocked on its side. The front was rounded off to a blunt point , curled subtly downwards. On either side of the hull were mounted short wings for travelling through planetary atmospheres, small outlets for turning mounted on the underside. The whole thing was coated with a shining bright silver, highlighted by the same deep blue as it's owners armour " Her name is Inquisitor, In your language anyway. Isn't she beautiful?"
Frank said nothing. He didn't have to.
...
The majority of Inquisitor's tiny crew was made up of Asari with the exception of the pilot, a Salarian. Clianala had explained that she didn't like VI's in charge of her ship, and that "Blink" as he was called was one of the few people with reflexes quick enough to keep the ship steady. The whole time they had been in the bridge the pilot hadn't said a word, merely nodding to show he knew they were there. Franks military instincts had told him this was insubordination, on an alliance ship refusing to speak to the commanding officer was a serious offense , but he was coming to realise that Clianala wasn't this man's superior, not in the military sense. She was his employer, and he was doing his job. Getting used to the lack of official protocol was harder than he had expected.
He undid all the seals on his armour and stepped out of it. He compacted it the way he had done since he had begun basic training all those years ago on Arcturus and laid it against the wall of his quarters. The room he had been given was of reasonable size, certainly larger than the sleeper pods he had been accustomed to. It was quite dark, only lit by a couple of strip lights, and it was very basic, only a bed, a couple of shelves and a toilet. Like a prison cell.
When he had first boarded Clianala had taken him on a brief tour of the ship's main facilities. It was smaller than he had expected, but it was clean and well run. The chief engineer was a stern, purple woman, but she clearly knew the vessel inside and out. The drive core she maintained was of Asari design, well protected by redundant coolers and suspension fields. Cerberus could have learned a thing or two, if only they were smart enough to listen. He had also met the ship's doctor, who had seemed friendly. Maybe too friendly if you asked him. all the time they had talked, it had seemed as though she wanted to take him apart to see how he worked. Having made a note to himself to never get injured if it could be helped, they had moved on to the armoury. It was well stocked but a little dusty, Clianala rarely using more than her pistols and Biotics in combat.
After the tour Clianala had left him in his room to get changed before she briefed him. Most of the crew was having dinner in the galley outside. Frank was very good at going without food, having spent days without a meal during his operations with Haro'Danar and his crew aboard Remora. The Quarians had been good to him, but they simply couldn't risk keeping levo-protein foods so close to their own rations. On those missions, he had simply had to sit it out until he could find a fuel station that sold supplies small enough to store in his bag . On one particularly long mission he had tied off the ends of a pair of under leggings and used them to store food, much to his squads amusement. He picked up a small bundle of clothes from the shelf and placed them on the bed, unfolding and checking each item one by one as he did so. He had been provided with a pair of leggings, which by the looks of things were in Asari size XL, a baggy black sweater that reached halfway down his thighs, and for reasons he couldn't quite fathom, a woollen hat. He checked how he looked in one of the shiny steel walls and was immediately reminded of on old picture of a fisherman he had seen in a history book. At least it was warm.
Now that he was ready, he opened the door and stepped tentatively out into the galley. It looked as though the crew had finished eating, as the doctor was the only other person in sight. She was sitting at one end of the table, reading a datapad. Frank looked down both sides of the room he was in and was dismayed to see that both of the far walls lead to doors. It occurred to him that Clianala had neglected to give him any directions to the briefing room. For a while he just stood there, lost, deciding which door looked like the right one. the doctor smiled and put down her holo-pad. She pointed to the door on the right.
"Thankyou doctor."
"my pleasure, commander."
Too friendly by far. He took the door on his right and found himself in a darkened room, a solitary spotlight illuminating a map of the galaxy that dominated the room. The map was covered by a thick glass screen onto which was projected a variety of notes, extranet pages and photographs. Such a magnificent setup must have cost a fortune. Opposite him stood Clianala, leaning into the table and scrolling through a file.
"I've got to get myself one of these" Said Frank. The spectre edged gracefully along the table, dragging the whole display along with her with a finger. She stopped right beside him, bringing the screen to a gentle halt. With a tap she brought up a picture of a planet, an elephant-grey world with swirling white clouds.
" How much do you know about Biotics?"
"Only the basics. Eezo particles in the central nervous system allow certain individuals to manipulate mass effect fields, varying in strength according to the individual. All Asari have it. Beyond that there isn't much I can tell you, other than that it makes someone a pain in the ass to shoot. No offense."
"None taken. That's pretty much all I know about how it works too." She minimized the picture of the planet and brought up a map of the Pylos nebula. "But it seems someone wants to know more , a lot more. A couple of weeks before I agreed to pick you up, the council asked me to look into a spate of attacks against ships ferrying passengers through Pylos. At first I assumed it was some new pirate gang but when I saw what had happened to the ships it became clear this was the work of professionals." She brought up an image of the inside one of the raided ships. Bodies lay in into corners, islands of flesh in a sea of brown blood , the product of many species having been executed together. Pirates tended to leave bodies where they fell, only moving a body if there was something underneath worth looting, but these people had been lined up whilst they were alive to make them easier to shoot. This was a clear sign that they had been murdered by someone who didn't want to be identified. But if not pirates then who? Terrorists? Not likely. The whole point of a terror attack was that it was visible, to show what the terrorist was willing to do if they were ignored. The geth? They had previously been sighted in the system, but why would they suddenly start attacking passenger ships. It made no sense.
Frank thought back to what Clianala had said."why do you think this has something to do with Biotics?" he asked, thoughtfully.
Clianala waved off the grisly image and brought up a block of text. It listed the names of all the passengers and crew of each ship, along with their species and a column marked " remains accounted for". He looked it over and saw about a third of the names had not been ticked. He began to see a pattern.
"notice anything?"
"all the unticked names belong to Asari !"
"exactly. My initial thoughts were Batarian slavers running a sex trafficking ring but then I noticed some of the bodies had been cut open surgically and high-grade amplifiers removed. That's what has me thinking someone has been abducting these people for experiments of some kind."
"Experiments? Why would someone want to do illegal research into Asari biotics, I thought it was already a well established field?"
"I know. It didn't seem right to me either. That's why I've made an appointment to see Forandas haaki, he's a specialist in Biotic genetics and I'm hoping he'll be able to shed some light on the subject." She dragged up a picture of an elderly Salarian . "unfortunately he's on Illium. I've told Blink to set a course for crescent relay, we should be there in about nine hours." Frank nodded. It seemed a reasonable place to start. "until then I suggest you get some sleep, that last thing I need is you passing out from exhaustion in the middle of the professors office."
He nodded again and exited the room, leaving Clianala studying data on the display table. The doctor was still sitting at the table, still reading the holo-pad from before.
" goodnight, commander," She said in a sickly sweet voice "Hope you sleep well."
As he entered his cabin, frank double-checked that he had locked the door.